Construction is officially under way on a sprawling health facility at the Volkswagen auto assembly plant, which planners say will improve the health of local VW employees as well as residents of the Ooltewah region.

Using oversized plastic scalpels as shovels, civic and business leaders sliced into a patch of ground Wednesday on Volkswagen Drive at the site of the planned health and wellness facility, which will become the sixth of Erlanger Health System’s campuses.

The 32,000-square-foot center should be complete and ready for business by June 2011, officials said.

“The whole point of this campus is to be proactive” about health, Jim Brexler, Erlanger president and CEO, said at the groundbreaking ceremony.

The fact that the facility is open to the general public “gives us the chance to create an incredible medical facility here ... that adds value to Volkswagen and the community at large,” Brexler said.